For most products which are to be handled and/or carried by consumers, the consumer typically prefers lighter weight products while not wanting to lose any product quality or durability. Lighter weight products, in addition to being more desirable for consumers, are often also preferred by manufactures in order to reduce shipping and handling costs. Essentially everything from raw materials and parts to finished products need to be shipped from their point of origin to the consumer.
Consumer electronic products are of particular concern, not only because of shipping costs, but also for environmental reasons. Serious environmental impacts can result from the large volumes of consumer electronic products that enter into and phase out of the market each year. Everything has to be travel over ocean and/or ground at one point. Shipping requires fuel to be burned and carbon dioxide to be expended. The heavier the object, the more fuel it takes to ship. Certain materials used to produce products for consumer and industry have manufacturing processes that are energy intensive and generate large amounts of greenhouse gas and environmental waste. In addition, many waste products end up in landfills and the materials may persist in the environment for thousands of years. Therefore, there is an increased need for ultra-lightweight materials that are not energy intensive to produce, and which materials should also be easy to recycle and preferably biodegradable.
Despite current efforts to develop novel lightweight, environmentally friendly materials, significant technological needs remain unmet. New lightweight and ultra-light-weight materials are needed that are durable (impact-, crack-, rupture-, fatigue-, and corrosion-resistant), formable, transparent, non-toxic, inexpensive to fabricate, manufactured using low environment impact processes, and biodegradable. For certain applications, improved thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, and optical transparency are also relevant. Such materials having reduced density/weight may find usefulness for applications in space, aerospace, vehicles, industrial products, consumer products, and the human world.